andreeva_tia_nauchnyi_angliiskii_iazyk_vypusk_14_nauka
.pdflection of classic tales, published 40 years earlier, and Painter in turn had used as his sources Plutarch and Lucian...
An important difference between the creations of art and science is the feasibility to paraphrase. The semantic content of an artistic work - a play, a cantata or a painting - is critically dependent on the exact manner of its realization; that is, the greater an artistic work is, the more likely it is that any omis sion or changes from the original detract from its content. In other words, to paraphrase a great work of art - for instance to rewrite Timon - without loss of artistic quality requires a genius of the original creator. The semantic content of a great scientific paper, on the other hand, can later be paraphrased without serious loss of semantic content .by lesser scientist.
♦ Answer thefollowing questions.
1.Is scientific discovery the work of one or many people?
2.Are scientific creations less unique than artistic crea
tions?
3.What is more important for people scientific creations or
artistic ones?
Text 26
Engineering: Art or Science
Engineers, particularly in the older age, like to think if their work as more of an art than a science. Their motives are not difficult to understand for, until recently, the Arts had a great deal more social status than science and the description of one's work as an art does convey the impression, that it depends more on one's personal talents than in anything to be learnt from others. This has a special attraction for the self-made man. What is more, the dictionary supports this interpretation,
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for it defines art as human skill and, in this sense, engineering is certainly n art; but so is chemistry or riding a bicycle. Skill, after all, is needed for practically everything. Now let us look up "Science": COD defines this as systematic, formulated knowledge. Thus we have a spectrum of human activities, from art, an activity which can produce extremely gratifying results without using any systematic knowledge; to science which is systematic, enabling each scientist to build directly upon the work of others. Science is essentially a social activity while art is based on individual talent. This is not to say that science ex cludes talent; Newton and Einstein must be granted as much per sonal genius as any artist. However, the inestimable value of sci ence is that the systematic combination of many individual con tributions adds up to a great deal more titan their arithmetic sum.
This, then, is a background against which we must decide whether to day engineering is an art or a science. It is necessary to admit that a century ago it would have been foolish to call it anything but an art or craft. Though scientific revolution had preceded an industrial one, the early engineers knew little and cared less about formal science.
But by 1860 physics and chemistry, at least, were begin ning to catch up with engineering, as biology was catching up with medicine. The German chemical industry was perhaps the first to introduce science-based engineering, with well-known results. Since then advances in many branches of engineering without a sound base in science have become almost unthinkable.
The defenders of engineering as an art have been forced to take refuge behind the many problems hitherto solved by guesswork and experiment, rather than theory. This proves nothing: on the same basis nuclear physics might be de scribed as an art. Others equate science with the excessively
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analytical approach to engineering in the universities; but there is as much synthesis in science as in art and the de signer who solves a practical problem systematically is as much a scientist as the physicist who studies flame propaga tion in engines. The distinction between gaining knowledge and applying it is a very artificial one.
The real division is between those who instinctively reject systematic theory, taking refuge in "art" which can be acquired through personal experience, if at all; and those who accept that in modem engineering more can be achieved by the systematic application of knowledge than by guesswork however inspired. The latter have little difficulty in recognizing engineering as an applied science like medicine. It is the scientific approach which distinguishes the professional engineer from the craftsman.
♦ Read the text. Make a list offacts that show your attitude to engineering.
Text 27
The Impact o f Research and Development on Science and Engineering
Those of us who live in the modem world of science and technology are apt to think that the concept or concepts of re search and development belong peculiarly to our generation, starting within our lifetime and being the dominant character istic of our time; that our science and our engineering are the first to feel their impact. However, science has used experi mental and theoretical investigation, or research, as its princi pal tool since the dawn of modem science beginning with Galileo. And engineering has used development as one of its principal tools for centuries. The process of development goes
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right back to the first device or tool used by man, a club, a lever or a bow.
The fields of science and engineering began to link inti mately in the 19th century. Prior to them most inventions and engineering developments stemmed from the practical needs of life and were produced by craftsmen and artisans. Science, on the other hand, or natural philosophy, as it was called until the 19th century, was mostly quite remote from the practicalities of life. However, in the nineteenth century scientific research, which was undertaken purely in the search for knowledge and understanding, began occasionally to precede engineering ap plication, even suggesting new practical applications. In some cases scientific inquiry opened previously unimagined areas of application and in turn the resulting practical tools gave scien tists more power to do new research.
We have lived for at least a century and a half with the in timate interdependence of science and engineering. The two methods of pursuing these, fields, research and development, are by now old hat.
We even find that the engineer has borrowed the process of research from the scientist and the scientist has borrowed the process of development from the engineer.
However, there is a characteristic of research and develop ment which is peculiar to our time. This simply is that the re search and development activity of scientists and engineers has now grown to such proportions that it is a major concern of all citizens. It is something big enough to be governed, in fact it is now one of the principal causes of the growth of government. The need to regulate research and development and its products is apparent in all sides.
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One of the most characteristic features of research and de velopment is the inexorable growth of technical project. It starts as a simple, inexpensive activity involving only a few scientists or engineers, with the motive either of studying the nature of the universe or of developing something practical. Soon it reaches a stage when the idea begins to take on more advocates, either more scientists who realize that the idea is the beginning of a fruitful field for scientific investigation, or more engineers, industrialists and military men who realize that the idea, if properly developed, will pay off in their field of appli cation. Then it proves itself successful and takes a place in the affairs of men in general. In the early days of the growth of the idea, its advancement is limited only by technical considera tions. As time goes on, however, the impact of this idea on soci ety begins to bring other complicating factors and it changes from performance limited stage to society limited case.
By using the power of research and development as con ducted by scientists and engineers, many new ideas will grow to a point of size and importance where society itself, rather than a few enthusiastic engineers or scientists, will have to make the judgement of how much more should be done in this field. This need for collective action in the making of this judgement is really what is most characteristic of science and engineering in our generation.
♦ Read the text carefully. Present examplesfrom thefield of your research that prove interdependence of science and engi neering.
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Text 28
Science and Technological Progress in Modern Society
Natural science is the main characteristic feature distin guishing the present civilization from the other civilizations in the past. From its early beginnings in the sixteenth century, the developments of science have influenced the course of western civilization more and more until today it plays a most dominant role. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that we live in a world that, materially and intellectually, has been created by science.
This point is easy to illustrate on the material level. One merely needs to mention the telephone, the radio, the televi sion, the automobile, and the airplane, or any of the countless devices invented by the application of science. There is hardly an article used in the homes, in the places of work, or in the places of enjoyment that has not been modified by technology based on science; the means of communication that bind the continents into a single community depend on scientific know how, without modem sanitation it would be impossible to have large centres of population; without modem industry and agri culture it would be impossible to feed, to clothe, and to provide the "abundant life" to this large population.
There is, however, another part of the story less obvious and less well known, but fur more important. It is a story of expanding intellectual horizons - the impact of science on the mind of a man. Fundamentally, science is an intellectual enter prise, an attempt to understand the world in a particular way. All the developments mentioned above are but the results, the outcomes of this intellectual activity.
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Over the past 150 years the range of human knowledge has been doubled every twelve to fifteen years. In 1930 man knew four times as much as he did in 1900; by 1960 his knowledge had grown sixteenfold, and by the year 2000 it can be expected to be a hundred times what it had been a century previously.
The second part of the twentieth century has brought a number of technical innovations, which are still very young but which are taken so much for granted that it is as if they have always existed.
In the fifties of the running century hardly anyone would probably have believed that we should be able to sit at home and watch astronauts walking in space or that people could be kept alive by the heart of a dead man.
The transistor was not invented until 1948. This piece of electronic equipment found wide use in space technology, computers, transistor radios, medical instruments, television sets-in fact, wherever precise control and modulation of elec trical signals was required. It seemed absurd to suppose that it could ever be replaced, however, the invention of ICs (inte grated circuits) in 1958 brought in a new era of change in the field so fundamental, that it already has the characteristics of a second industrial revolution.
A mere twelve years separated the launching of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957 and man's first landing on the Moon in 1969. The first long-term orbital station Salyut launched in 1971 opened a new era in space research, pro viding the possibility of conducting investigations in the field of astrophysics, space technology, medicine, biology, etc. under conditions inconceivable on the earth. Another period of ten years and in 1981 we could witness the launching of a typically new cosmic vehicle - the Shuttle.
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It is not difficult to continue with other examples but the point is clear. Events such as these are characteristic of the rate of technological development in the second half of the 20th century. "They suggest that the technological innovations we are to experience during the next twenty years to come may well surpass our wildest fantasies and today's tomorrow may well become tomorrow's the day before yesterday. Science oc cupies a central position in modem society. It dominates man's whole existence. Research and innovations in technology should improve society's living and workingconditions and remedy the negative effects of technical and social changes".
Recent developments of nuclear weapons, satellites, space platforms and intercontinental ballistic missiles have attracted, and rightly so, public attention throughout the world. "They make wars of annihilation possible and forcibly thrust upon us the necessity of coming to an understanding with the other na tions. It is not merely a matter of peace, but, rather, poses the question of the very survival of the human race".
♦ Read two summaries. Which one reflects the ideas of the passage more accurately? It is because:
1)it is too short and the main idea is not expressed;
2)it is too long and there are too many details and the keyideas do not stand out;
3)the wrong key-ideas have been selected.
Summary 1
Natural science and technology play a dominant role in modem society. The range of human knowledge doubles every twelve to fifteen years. Research and innovations should im prove living and working conditions and remedy the negative effects of technical and social changes.
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Summary 2
Natural science is the main characteristic feature of the pre sent civilization. Science and technology have modified our homes, places of work and enjoyment, means of communica tions. Science expands man's intellectual horizons. The range of human knowledge doubles every twelve years and by the year 2000 it can be expected to be a hundred times what it had been a century previously. The second half of the twentieth century has brought a number of technical innovations - tran sistor, ICs, satellites, etc. Recent developments of nuclear weapons make wars of annihilation possible and pose the question of the survival of the human race.
Text 29
Scientific Communication
For scientific research, communication is essential. Sci ence is to be characterised as "public knowledge". In other words, the aim of the scientist is to create, criticize or con tribute to a rational consensus of ideas and information. If you accept this as a general notion, you will agree that the results of research only become completely scientific when they are published.
Our present system of scientific communication depends almost entirely on the primary literature. This has three basic characteristics: it is fragmentary, derivative and edited. These characteristics are quite essential.
a) A regular journal carries from one research worker to another the various discoveries, dedications, speculations and observations which are of common interest. Although the best and most famous scientific discoveries seem to open whole
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new windows of the mind, a typical scientific paper has never pretended to be anything but another little piece of a large jig saw not significant in itself but as an element of a grander scheme. Primary scientific papers are not meant to be final statements of indisputable truths: each is merely a tiny tentative step forward, through the jungles of ignorance.
b)Scientific papers are derivative, and very largely uno riginal because they lean heavily on previous research. The evidence for this is plain to see, in the long list of citations that must always be published with every new contribution. It is very rare to find a reputable paper that contains no references to other research. Indeed, one relies on the citations to show its place in the whole scientific structure.
c)The editing of the scientific literature is a more delicate aster, the author presents an entirely false picture of his actual procedure of discovery. All the false starts, the mistakes, the unnecessary complications, the difficulties and hesitations are bidden. All is made easy, simple and apparently inevitable. Considering all this, external censorship of scientific papers is an essential element of our system of scientific publications. We must be able to rely on the basic accuracy and honesty of what we read in other people's papers, for we are always using their results in the construction of our own researches, and simply cannot find the time to repeat all their experiments, measurements, calculations or arguments for ourselves.
♦ Read the text and make a list offacts toprove that commu nication is essentialfor scientific research.
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